Warrior Gene
by thatguywholikestowrite
Summary: One-Shot about Liz and Red's connection, they're shared history and how Red knows so much about her. Enjoy and please let me know what you think!


**This is a one shot that just popped into my head while at work. It's a theory about Reds connection to Lizzie and a little something more. It's probably not completely fool proof, I'm sure there will be a few cracks in my idea, but as I continued writing it, I found I was really enjoying it.**

 **I apologise in advance for any spelling mistakes, I wrote this as fast as possible.**

 **Anyway, it would be great if you all let me know what you think.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own anything.**

Raymond Reddington's new target was a famous KGB agent named Katarina Rostova. Nobody really knew who she was, only a handful of people were even aware of her true existence.

She was mainly known as a myth… A story drunken men would make up while on night duty.

But Raymonds new mission what to find the so called mythical Katarina Rostova and infiltrate himself into her life.

There were rumours that her and her husband were thinking about having a child and it was Raymond's mission to bring them to the US under false pretenses to gain their trust.

And he soon did.

They trusted him so much so that when he "got chucked out of his family house" they invited him in.

He had very little history and less attached to his name, if someone was to do a background search. And that's why he was perfect for this task.

Katarina and her husband believed he worked in genetics for the government. But that's where he had suggested helping them, obviously for helping him out... The US government had recently discovered deficiencies in the genes of violent criminals. They wanted to work this to their own advantages and build something called a "Warrior Gene" this gene would enable humans to come across as well rounds civilians of society but in the back burner they would drop everything in a second to save someone they cared deeply about. The idea for the government, was the manipulate them enough to essentially build brutal soldiers.

And they needed to start testing it.

On babies.

They needed to see what would happen when the gene was altered in the uterus.

And the famous Katarina was the perfect subject. Bring them in, abduct the child, get rid of the evidence, then watch from afar.

But…

It didn't quite go to plan.

Raymond had convinced Katarina and her husband that this would be a brilliant idea, she has the KGB mind-set and training, and her husband had the mind of criminal already. Mix that with Warrior Gene and they were looking at one incredible child.

That bit worked out fine, they both figured the child would then follow in their footsteps. Exactly what they had planned but this seemed to have it's advantages.

Four years on and their beautiful little Masha was getting along fine. She learnt pick pocketing for her father and self defense from her mother.

Raymond would come in and talk business with Katarina husband. He had noticed his fellow officers were dropping off the grid and then later being told they were traitors. He'd learnt from being around Katarina husband, who was a career criminal to be cautious of the system.

He got along swimmingly with Masha, he had a daughter at home herself who was a a few years older.

But suddenly Katrina's marriage started to fall apart. Her husband has stolen a device called The Fulcrum from people high up in the US government. Of course he couldn't be arrested because The Fulcrum wasn't supposed to exist.

He'd told Raymond all about it and this had helped Raymond's decision on leaving his position. He'd realised that the top important players were normally the most evil. But he couldn't leave too soon without it being a little bit obvious.

So he waited.

He stalled information to return back to HQ.

Meanwhile creating his own army of people who were on his side who also worked as Naval Officers.

One day they were gathered in a black site to be told a new mission.

Kill the Father of the Rostova family, find the Fulcrum, and tell the Mother and Daughter he had betrayed the country and have them put in protective custody. They were briefed on how to do it and what they were looking for. Of course only a select few knew that Raymond was working undercover with the family and the superior demanding the mission be complete clearly did not know either.

They were to enter the house when the mother and daughter weren't home.

Raymond had made quite the impression on Katarina and told her he would like to take her and her daughter out for dinner as her husband would be "away on business".

With Katarina and her daughter out of the house Raymond and his team were instructed to find the fulcrum and get out.

But previous to them entering, Katarina and her husband had been arguing about her and Masha going to dinner with Raymond.

He was drunk… like usual.

Masha was in bed when she heard shouting. Katarina had been training her to be able to defend herself, and this included working a firearm and for a four year old Masha picked it up extremely well, which they put down to the Warrior Gene.

She heard the continuous shouting and headed downstairs only to see her father hitting her mother. She quickly found a gun and fired once before seeing her father fall to the ground.

Her mother slightly mumbled "I'm sorry."

Katarina knew her training and disposed of her late husband's body before telling Masha to go upstairs and hide in the cupboard.

Raymond and his team were instructed to fit in and enter the house without force. Raymond could do this having known the family. They entered and ended up arguing continuously with Katarina about the whereabouts of this thing called the Fulcrum, she said she knew nothing. Raymond kept asking where Masha was, at the end of the day she was still a child and he didn't want her to have to be witness to this.

She lied and said she was out with her father.

He threatened to kill her, having exposed himself to her now. The argument between the two continued and Raymond's team flipped the house to find the Fulcrum.

Finally, they did.

One of his team members approached and whispered in his ear that he had got it.

He knew this was a job all the way along and made sure not to get attached to Katrina or her husband but unfortunately he ended up feeling sorry for poor little Masha but to his knowledge she wasn't even here.

Evil seemed to light up inside him and he and his team readied the house for fire.

As the fire spread Katarina did nothing to indicate her daughter was still in the house, she instead inhaled the fumes and died.

That's when it happened.

The noise.

The little girl was screaming.

His team had already started leaving but he couldn't.

He ran through the flames and followed the noise to find Masha hidden in the cupboard.

She was muttering about having done something really bad and how all of this was her fault. He reassured her that none of this was her fault and he was going to look after her now and make sure she was ok.

They made it out the fire barely alive.

Raymond had jumped out the window after seeing his back catch of fire.

They escaped.

He knew as soon as it all ended he had been naive and not planned it well at all, a lesson that would follow him for the rest of his life.

He knew of a friend. Sam. And he knew Sam was just the right person to raise Masha.

When they arrived Sam was furious, but tried to hide his anger from the young seemingly innocent child in front of him.

Masha didn't seem to like Sam very well and had asked for Raymond to put her to bed.

When he had managed to settle her. She told him, she opened up and told him how she had killed her father. He wanted to make sure it wasn't a story and did a cognitive interview with her. When she ended up in an emotional state he was sure it was true. He was fairly sure as the Warrior Gene is designed to work better with people they love. If someone they love is threatened it's almost as if they're out of control of their body and they just act. Always resulting in death. But he had to make sure. He knew from living with her this hadn't happened yet and it was a major progress for the Gene.

Raymond briefed Sam on the Warrior Gene and made him make sure he never put himself in danger in front of her out of danger she'd commit another crime. She didn't need that and to Raymond she was perfectly innocent child brought into this world under the completely wrong circumstances.

After all injuries had been seen to and Masha had settled in, Raymond organised for Masha memory to be block. Of course illegally, over the years with Katarina husband he had many connections he knew would come in handy and they sure did.

27 Years Later

FBI Agent Elizabeth Keen was working with the 4th Most Wanted Fugitive Raymond Reddington, she'd recently turned 31 and even though her life wasn't going exactly as planned,but one thing she was happy was that she'd never experienced the ones she loved dearest threatened in front of her.

Until she was standing before Tom Connolly and listening to him threaten the people she cared most about.

Harold, Red, Aram, Ressler and even Samar.

That's when it happened.

She drew her weapon and aimed at Connolly.

She felt herself become drowsy almost as if this had triggered some weird sort of emotions that she wasn't aware of, but before she could process what was happening with her body and mind she had shot him.

That's when it all came back.

That night, seeing her father hitting her mother, and shooting.

She finally understood why Red had blocked her memories and not told her why.

It all came back.

But there was so much more to understand.

 _fin._

 _A/N: Please let me know what you thought of my theory. And even if it was a terrible theory let me know if you enjoyed it._


End file.
